On Monday we hired a car to do the "Golden Circle" tour - we were going to go with a tour company but Helgi and Paul insisted it would be cheaper and easier to drive ourselves. The car didn't come with satnav, so I appointed George the cuddly puffin to do the job instead. I'd bought George the day before to assuage my guilt (see earlier post!).
The Golden Circle tour consists of four sites relatively close together: Geysir, the Gullfoss waterfall, Þingvellir, a national park containing the site of the oldest parliament in the world, and Skálholt, one of the oldest Christian sites in Iceland.
Geysir marked the beginning of what were to be a fairly surreal couple of days. The Haukadalur valley in which Geysir is situated features a field full of holes pouring steam, man-sized pools of boiling water, and rings of expectant tourists clustered around larger stone pools waiting to say "blimey" in their native tongue as they get soaked through by rather pleasantly warm towers of water. All of the major geysers are named - Strokkur is a regular chap, belching wetly every six or seven minutes, but the great Geysir only graced us with one eruption, which none of us managed to get on film. All of the geysers confirmed our egg-sulphur theory however, as the whole place had a familiar whiff of rotten eggs to it.
Leaving Haukadalur valley we drove on to Hvítárgljúfur canyon, where the Gullfoss waterfall was ready to boggle our braincells with terror. The terror started some time before reaching the waterfall, when I stepped onto the wooden walkway to the visitor centre and found it immensely slippery. "Jeezaforfucksakes" exclaimed and flailing dances performed we all wandered gingerly down the hillside. At the bottom of the hilariously iced-up wooden steps we reached the path that followed the edge of the top of the canyon, trailing slightly upward around to the peak of the waterfall itself. To describe this path as "a bit icy" would be akin to describing a pavement as "a bit concretey" - the entire thing was one long (and rather cambered) strip of ice. At the peak there was a safety rope, which reminded me of previous conversations about Icelandic health and safety, because it was lying on the ground in the main. Of course that means nothing gets in the way of the photos :)
Þingvellir is an immensely peaceful place. We didn't see a lot of it as it's not the best time of year to go - most of the wildlife has done the sensible thing and buggered off for the Winter. But the Almannagjá ravine was still very impressive. It leads to the site where the Alþingi (Icelandic parliament) convened, from 930 AD. What I found most interesting is that the parliament convened there annually right up until the end of the 18th century. The view from the cliff above the ravine is beautiful - huge plains broken by small streams and the occasional tiny lake stretching out to the horizon, bounded by shining snow-speckled mountains. The plains are actually much more rugged close up - the land is broken quite a lot by fissures and caves because the whole area is right on the join between the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates.
Tuesday morning saw another early rise - we were due to do the only thing we booked in Iceland before leaving the UK: our trip to the Blue Lagoon. The Blue Lagoon is an artificial outdoor pool created by filling a large natural gully through volcanic rock with waste water from the geothermal power plant next door. The result is a pool of water coloured blue from the minerals in the rocks, at a temperature of 37-39 degrees celsius. It steams immensely, and the steam is carried by the wind, so you can't see further than about 25m - you certainly can't ever see one side from the other. There is a restaurant in the building where we had lunch - including a white chocolate Skyr mousse, yum yum. The restaurant is called "Lava" because two of it's walls are carved out of the volcanic rock. The other two were almost entirely glass, looking out onto the lagoon. The architecture and lighting left me with the distinct impression we were guests of some archenemy of James Bond.. there was a pretty neat "supervillain's volcano hideaway" vibe to the whole place. I had an hour-long massage while I was there too, which was very nice. I was impressed (and slightly disturbed) when the masseur said, ten minutes in, "You work in IT, right?". I said "Yeah, but what specifically?". He didn't even pause - "Games". Masseur and psychic, clever stuff. We chatted quite a lot; by bizarre coincidence in his previous job as a carpenter he helped build CCP's studio in Reykjavik. Small world..
Wednesday 7 January 2009
Sunday 4 January 2009
local delicacies
Skyr is tasty. I read about it in some touristy leaflet this morning, where it was recommended for children, old people, bodybuilders, dieters, and also as relief for sunburn (presumably you rub it on your skin for that). I had a Skyr Brulee for dessert tonight in a restaurant called "Thrir Frakkar", which means "Three Frenchmen" or "Three Trenchcoats" depending on how you interpret it. Anyway, our new friends Paul and Helgi took us there tonight after drinks in the Penthouse.
I've waffled about that to lead up to something that might shock some of you. Those of you of a nervous/'awwwww' disposition, make sure you're sitting comfortably.
For main course I had whale.
And for starter.. I had..
puffin.
Now I didn't make the decision lightly. My thinking was that chickens, which are pretty ugly, don't taste of much. Ducks on the other hand are quite cute - and taste yummy. So.. puffins? They're extra cuddly - so they must taste fantastic, right? Well, kinda. To be honest it was difficult to tell - the meat was heavily smoked so not a lot of flavour got through. The meat is very red though, not remotely like chicken or duck.
Whale, Helgi assured us, was not remotely fishy - and he was right, it tasted like an incredibly flavoursome beef steak to me. Whale I'd eat again (if I didn't think it so controversial) but puffin I can leave. I'll leave them to posing for photographers with gobfulls of fish.
I've waffled about that to lead up to something that might shock some of you. Those of you of a nervous/'awwwww' disposition, make sure you're sitting comfortably.
For main course I had whale.
And for starter.. I had..
puffin.
Now I didn't make the decision lightly. My thinking was that chickens, which are pretty ugly, don't taste of much. Ducks on the other hand are quite cute - and taste yummy. So.. puffins? They're extra cuddly - so they must taste fantastic, right? Well, kinda. To be honest it was difficult to tell - the meat was heavily smoked so not a lot of flavour got through. The meat is very red though, not remotely like chicken or duck.
Whale, Helgi assured us, was not remotely fishy - and he was right, it tasted like an incredibly flavoursome beef steak to me. Whale I'd eat again (if I didn't think it so controversial) but puffin I can leave. I'll leave them to posing for photographers with gobfulls of fish.
Saturday 3 January 2009
Hallgrímskirkja is ugly
I'm sorry, people of Reykjavik, but it is. You've made a valiant attempt to disguise the fact by a) making sure all tourist leaflet photos of it are taken from a great distance and b) covering half of it with scaffolding, but you haven't fooled me.
It's "Hallgrim's Church" in English - it dates from 1945, and it looks like a concrete space rocket.
Now that I've got that off my chest, I'll change the subject.
On New Year's Eve we met a lot of people. Some were Icelandic, some were British, one was Venezuelan, one was cross-eyed with booze but knew the "correct" way to kill a duck ("and that's what we should do to the bankers!"), and all were marvellous fun. Two who we got on with particularly well were a couple called Paul and Helgi, who live in London, but were over visiting Helgi's family for New Year. When they went home around 1am we told them it would be nice to see them again, maybe go out for a meal, and that we were in the penthouse for the rest of our stay (but of course!) and they agreed, but no numbers were exchanged so we didn't expect we'd see them again. So it was great to have them knock on the door this morning! Armed with cups of tea we sat around various maps, and they showed us all the best places to visit - and were adamant a hire car would work out cheaper than a tour bus.
The weather forecast isn't great so we're gonna stay in Reykjavik for a day or two yet. The flea market is open tomorrow, which should be fun, and in the evening we're having dinner and drinks with Paul and Helgi. Worryingly one of the places Helgi mentioned that he liked was one of the first restaurants we'd walked past, and immediately written off as far too expensive (~£35 for a fairly basic main course), so it'll be interesting to see where they've decided upon.
Interesting fact I looked up today: the population of Iceland is around 320,000. The population of Manchester (central, not greater) is slightly less than 460,000.
It's "Hallgrim's Church" in English - it dates from 1945, and it looks like a concrete space rocket.
Now that I've got that off my chest, I'll change the subject.
On New Year's Eve we met a lot of people. Some were Icelandic, some were British, one was Venezuelan, one was cross-eyed with booze but knew the "correct" way to kill a duck ("and that's what we should do to the bankers!"), and all were marvellous fun. Two who we got on with particularly well were a couple called Paul and Helgi, who live in London, but were over visiting Helgi's family for New Year. When they went home around 1am we told them it would be nice to see them again, maybe go out for a meal, and that we were in the penthouse for the rest of our stay (but of course!) and they agreed, but no numbers were exchanged so we didn't expect we'd see them again. So it was great to have them knock on the door this morning! Armed with cups of tea we sat around various maps, and they showed us all the best places to visit - and were adamant a hire car would work out cheaper than a tour bus.
The weather forecast isn't great so we're gonna stay in Reykjavik for a day or two yet. The flea market is open tomorrow, which should be fun, and in the evening we're having dinner and drinks with Paul and Helgi. Worryingly one of the places Helgi mentioned that he liked was one of the first restaurants we'd walked past, and immediately written off as far too expensive (~£35 for a fairly basic main course), so it'll be interesting to see where they've decided upon.
Interesting fact I looked up today: the population of Iceland is around 320,000. The population of Manchester (central, not greater) is slightly less than 460,000.
Friday 2 January 2009
Penthouses, eggs, and Icelandic TV
We moved up to the penthouse apartment on New Year's Day. It's a bit nice - I'd post a picture but normal USB cables don't fit my camera unfortunately. The guys running the hotel told us they used to live up here until they sold the hotel just before the recession (good timing!).
The water in the shower smells hugely of eggs - we've decided it must be sulphur.. we're blaming volcanic activity. On the bus from the airport we noticed several plumes of steam in the distance which appeared to be coming straight out of the ground. Quite a surreal sight really.. adds to the general feeling I have about Iceland - that it's the last outpost of civilisation before you fall off the world. The darkness here is so total.. no light pollution I suppose. It makes for fantastic views - looking out across the bay from the jacuzzi last night I saw the nearby buildings lit up perfectly, then just nothing beyond. Tremendously geeky reference: it looks like the skybox isn't rendering :)
We got up around 9am this morning - it was as dark outside as it was when we went to bed at 1am of course. Interestingly when Russell turned on the TV there was only a testcard to be found. I'm beginning to think people here are offset by a few hours to get up with the sun at 12 - the road outside was still full of people at 1am, but there was barely a soul at 9..
The water in the shower smells hugely of eggs - we've decided it must be sulphur.. we're blaming volcanic activity. On the bus from the airport we noticed several plumes of steam in the distance which appeared to be coming straight out of the ground. Quite a surreal sight really.. adds to the general feeling I have about Iceland - that it's the last outpost of civilisation before you fall off the world. The darkness here is so total.. no light pollution I suppose. It makes for fantastic views - looking out across the bay from the jacuzzi last night I saw the nearby buildings lit up perfectly, then just nothing beyond. Tremendously geeky reference: it looks like the skybox isn't rendering :)
We got up around 9am this morning - it was as dark outside as it was when we went to bed at 1am of course. Interestingly when Russell turned on the TV there was only a testcard to be found. I'm beginning to think people here are offset by a few hours to get up with the sun at 12 - the road outside was still full of people at 1am, but there was barely a soul at 9..
Thursday 1 January 2009
To the whores of Italy!
New Year's Eve began with us getting the bus out to the Kringlan shopping centre to buy food for the week. Icelandic supermarket highlights: all manner of "Lazy Town"-branded fruit products, tens of types of flavoured butter (garlic, herbs, tomato etc.), and more types of gouda than I could count (but no cheddar! b*stards!).
Of course along the way we encountered a lot more embarrassingly good English-as-a-second-language speakers - the woman in the shop who told us where the bus stop was (clueless bloody tourists), the exceptionally friendly woman at the bus stop who, unprompted, told us which bus to get and to have exact change, and various members of staff at the supermarket who recognised all of our requests except "pancetta". To be fair our description of it consisted purely of the words "pig" and "carbonara".
In the evening, after dinner and a few rounds of fuzzy duck with some wankered-on-gin cockney couples we met in the jacuzzi, we wandered into town to see how the night's preparations were getting on. There were fairly regular fireworks going off every couple of minutes, seemingly all from family homes. We saw several bonfires across the bay but couldn't find the one alleged to be nearby (we surmised later we'd somehow walked round it several times without seeing it - pesky buildings getting in the way).
Eventually we made our way back to the apartment building and the party the owners were throwing in the lobby. After much champagne and chat we wandered up to the roof to watch the fireworks. From there we had a panoramic view of the city, all of which was alight with explosions. In every direction there was pyromania. It felt rather like everyone in Reykjavik was trying to outdo everyone else - the major fireworks started at 23:30 (because that's when the comedy revue on TV finishes, apparently - and out of interest last year's audience figures showed 96% of Icelanders watched it. Eat your heart out Angus Deayton) and remained constant until 00:30. Tourist jaws remained dropped throughout, but some of the Icelanders seemed a little ambivalent - enjoying themselves but somehow a little disappointed. One said "you can tell there's a recession on". If only all recessions could be so spectacular!
On a related note I had an interesting chat with one Icelander, who'd said I might be "surprised" by the roof itself - because there was no guard rail. Walk too far and you'll fall off. So don't walk too far. Similarly the stairs up to the roof go past the (completely unguarded) lift control mechanism. We're talking big grindy gears at face height. The chap I was talking to (who'd spent many years living in England) suggested Iceland just has a different attitude towards health and safety - he pointed out the Gulfoss waterfall had no guard rail either until a tourist fell to his death about 5 years ago. Something to bear in mind when we visit next week!
As the fireworks slowed, and the cold started to bite, people gradually started making their champagne-soaked way past the grindy-geared lift back down the stairs to the lobby. Russell, Mikey and myself decided to stay out - the fireworks were still ludicrously impressive by our standards. We wandered around the roof and found a very drunk Norwegian couple. The husband mainly stood in the background, laughing at his wife, who was very loud and very entertaining. We were shortly joined by an Icelander who kept lighting flares in his mouth, which was an interesting sight. There was much cheers-ing - I enquired what the Icelandic for "happy new year" was and quickly regretted it, so we settled on "skál" ("cheers", in case you hadn't worked it out - oh, and it's pronounced kind of like "scowl"). Various toasts were proposed by the Norwegian woman - to the people of Iceland, to the people of England, to Barack Obama. For some reason at this point the Icelander decided to recount a tale about losing his virginity at the age of fifteen to an Italian whore. I raised my glass: "To the whores of Italy!".
"Skál!"
Of course along the way we encountered a lot more embarrassingly good English-as-a-second-language speakers - the woman in the shop who told us where the bus stop was (clueless bloody tourists), the exceptionally friendly woman at the bus stop who, unprompted, told us which bus to get and to have exact change, and various members of staff at the supermarket who recognised all of our requests except "pancetta". To be fair our description of it consisted purely of the words "pig" and "carbonara".
In the evening, after dinner and a few rounds of fuzzy duck with some wankered-on-gin cockney couples we met in the jacuzzi, we wandered into town to see how the night's preparations were getting on. There were fairly regular fireworks going off every couple of minutes, seemingly all from family homes. We saw several bonfires across the bay but couldn't find the one alleged to be nearby (we surmised later we'd somehow walked round it several times without seeing it - pesky buildings getting in the way).
Eventually we made our way back to the apartment building and the party the owners were throwing in the lobby. After much champagne and chat we wandered up to the roof to watch the fireworks. From there we had a panoramic view of the city, all of which was alight with explosions. In every direction there was pyromania. It felt rather like everyone in Reykjavik was trying to outdo everyone else - the major fireworks started at 23:30 (because that's when the comedy revue on TV finishes, apparently - and out of interest last year's audience figures showed 96% of Icelanders watched it. Eat your heart out Angus Deayton) and remained constant until 00:30. Tourist jaws remained dropped throughout, but some of the Icelanders seemed a little ambivalent - enjoying themselves but somehow a little disappointed. One said "you can tell there's a recession on". If only all recessions could be so spectacular!
On a related note I had an interesting chat with one Icelander, who'd said I might be "surprised" by the roof itself - because there was no guard rail. Walk too far and you'll fall off. So don't walk too far. Similarly the stairs up to the roof go past the (completely unguarded) lift control mechanism. We're talking big grindy gears at face height. The chap I was talking to (who'd spent many years living in England) suggested Iceland just has a different attitude towards health and safety - he pointed out the Gulfoss waterfall had no guard rail either until a tourist fell to his death about 5 years ago. Something to bear in mind when we visit next week!
As the fireworks slowed, and the cold started to bite, people gradually started making their champagne-soaked way past the grindy-geared lift back down the stairs to the lobby. Russell, Mikey and myself decided to stay out - the fireworks were still ludicrously impressive by our standards. We wandered around the roof and found a very drunk Norwegian couple. The husband mainly stood in the background, laughing at his wife, who was very loud and very entertaining. We were shortly joined by an Icelander who kept lighting flares in his mouth, which was an interesting sight. There was much cheers-ing - I enquired what the Icelandic for "happy new year" was and quickly regretted it, so we settled on "skál" ("cheers", in case you hadn't worked it out - oh, and it's pronounced kind of like "scowl"). Various toasts were proposed by the Norwegian woman - to the people of Iceland, to the people of England, to Barack Obama. For some reason at this point the Icelander decided to recount a tale about losing his virginity at the age of fifteen to an Italian whore. I raised my glass: "To the whores of Italy!".
"Skál!"
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